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Wednesday, 25 January 2012

Talk for Radio Glamorgan

I performed my first real duty as hospital chaplain yesterday - recording a message for Radio Glamorgan. On their Sunday afternoon programme they include a five minute ‘thought for the day’ from the hospital chaplains. Mothering Sunday had been suggested to me as a possible topic so I created a script that referred to the Buddhist teaching that everyone has been our mother at some point in the endless stream of rebirths. Below is my script.

“As we approach
February, the New Year may not be feeling quite so new any more, yet
for some the New Year has not yet arrived. Losar—the Tibetan New
Year— is a three day festival that will be celebrated around
February 22nd.

In the west we have a
tradition of making resolutions in the New Year and perhaps these are
starting to slip a little towards the end of January. There are only
two resolutions that are of the utmost importance however, and we can
renew these every day or even every moment. These are the
resolutions to be kinder and more aware. Kindness and awareness are
the basis of spiritual practice. If we attempt to act kindly towards
other people we will discover that we become more aware. If we
attempt to be more aware we will find that it becomes easier to be
kind.

Sometimes it is the
busy-ness and pressure of our lives that gets in the way of awareness
and kindness. We feel rushed, stressed and overwhelmed. In order to
feel more relaxed and to discover the inner spaciousness that helps
us with our good intentions, it is important to give ourselves time
to be quiet everyday. We need to ensure that we have five or ten
minutes every day to let go of the endless stream of
things-that-need-to-be-done. The things-that-need-to-be-done will
never end, so we have to decide to take time out from them. Sit
quietly every day. Sit and watch the breath, letting go of tension
and thought as we breathe out. This simple practice develops calm
and inner peace so that over time our capacity to access this inner
spaciousness increases. This inner peace then starts to become
available to us even in times of fear or anger, illness or loss,
depression or confusion.

Another reason that we
find it difficult to be kind and open towards others is that we feel
a lack of connection with them and hence feel the need to protect
ourselves. Yet we are all intrinsically connected. We have all been
travelling through an endless cycle of living, dying and being
reborn. This cycling of birth, death and rebirth means that it is
likely that we have experienced every relationship with one another
that it is possible to have experienced – we have all been each
other’s mother or father, sister or brother, uncle or aunt, friend
or enemy, teacher or student, doctor or patient. Although we may
not recognise one another in this life, we have inevitably had a
strong connection in a previous life, and so our sense of
disconnection with others is illusory.

Understanding that we
have had every possible relationship with one another at some time
over countless lives, we can realise that therefore at some point in
that stream of lives, everyone has been our mother. This is perhaps
pertinent to consider as we approach Mothering Sunday. When we
celebrate the kindness and love of our own mother in this life, and
enjoy the love we feel toward her, we can remember that people that
we do not currently recognise as a loved one have been very dear to
us in previous lives. Contemplating this possibility we can allow
our hearts to open so that it becomes easier to act in a kindly way
toward others – even those that we do not know or do not get along
with. A kind and aware attitude are the key to peace and happiness –
our own, and everyone else’s.

So when we are
celebrating Losar or Mothering Sunday we can remember that we are all
intrinsically and endlessly connected to one another. Through this
understanding, and through allowing ourselves to be still and quiet
for ten minutes every day, we will gradually be able to let go of our
prejudices and self-protection so that our capacity to be kind and
aware becomes stronger and stronger.

Happy Losar to you all
– may the year of the Earth Dragon bring peace, joy and happiness.”

Note added 27-01-2012: many apologies - it will actually be the year of the Water Dragon.

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Happily married; 2 grown-up sons; own 1 retired horse & 2 old cats; enjoy art & craftwork; trained in ceramics, then later retrained as a homoeopath; my passion and the focus of my life is my Buddhist practice and commitments.